Thursday
by Rat Insatiable
Summary: Not much happens because it's Thursday.


Nobody was supposed to enjoy the kiddy death-march that was Walking Day in gym class. Since school funding was a fairy tale, students had to take a forced two-mile walk through the industrial district.

Zim had the temerity to goose-step the whole way, in the rain, with only his everyday uniform and disguise. His paste coating held up, denying Dib's morbid melty wishes as he glared at Zim from under the hood of his ochre-yellow poncho.

The children trudged back to the building as third period came to a close. Zim's wig wasn't even sagging; he must have coated himself at least three times, by Dib's observation.

The downpour gym class had started with pounded the building in a dull roar as students filtered into the locker rooms. Dib rolled up the ugly poncho and crammed it into his gym locker as far back as it would go—he kept it in case of hell strolls in inclement weather.

Dib glanced at Zim, who was sitting at the other end of the bench six lockers down, facing away from him. Zim had a small towel draped over his neck, which he'd been using to dry whatever hadn't slid off his paste coating, and a three-clawed hand pressed to his skinny chest.

Talking was forbidden during the march, and enforced with hovering laser cameras, so even Zim couldn't spend the whole hour lording his perceived superiority over the human children. And he would've crowed about it the whole way, calling the activity worthless, beneath him. Not much was beneath a three-foot-tall invader, Dib realized.

As he bit back a giggle, Dib noticed the alien stayed quiet after they'd gone inside, too. Now Zim was poking at himself for some unfathomable reason.

The moment ended as Zim realized everyone else had left. He threw the towel in his locker, slammed it shut on a terrycloth corner, and scuttled into the hall. Jolted out of his thoughts by that sudden exit, Dib scrambled to catch up.

* * *

Zim slowed to a walk in the hallway, his brow furrowing over fake contacts.

"What'samatter Zim? No smart remarks about the death march?"

Zim was glad he didn't squeak when Dib popped up over his shoulder. His hammering circulatory system wasn't.

He whipped out a spindly arm to point at Dib, gloved fingertip almost scraping the boy's glasses. "If those lasers didn't sting like BEES, my perfect insults would've stolen your will to live! You, and all the other—"

The bell rang, and demonic roach-scurrying drowned out Zim's tirade as shadows wrapped around his and Dib's torsos and dragged them to class. The door slammed and nailed itself shut behind them, and the shadows dropped them into their seats before sweeping to the head of the room to reform as Ms. Bitters.

"Today, we were going to have a lesson on Upton Sinclair's _The Jungle,_" she grated from behind her desk, "about how _NOTHING!_ Has changed since it was published. However, fourth period funding was cut to pay for the laser cameras you little poop-flecks forced us to install, with your ridiculous notions of 'spontaneous hooky.'"

A stuttering giggle came from the back row. "Huh huh. Poop." That kid got underground-classroomed before Dib even registered Ms. Bitters's finger on the button.

"Joy is forbidden!" said Ms. Bitters. "And so is anything remotely resembling a lecture from me during this time. Fourth period will become Absolute Silence Time, starting now."

The wall clocked ticked over to the next minute, the hush already in place. Dib folded his hands on his desk; this was nothing new. Last semester, sixth period had been Absolute Silence Time, but that had been right after lunch. No child could stay absolutely silent if they'd been dumb enough to eat whatever the school served.

Dib eyed the ceiling, hoping a fly or something had gotten in. Watching it suicide itself on the fluorescent lighting would kill a few minutes.

A different sound distracted Dib from the drone of ceiling lights. Someone was making noise. Ms. Bitters's posture hadn't changed. For all Dib knew, she was asleep—a deadly thing to assume.

Dib swept his gaze across the classroom. Old Kid, injecting Botox. Torque, sneaking Super Toast and bulging with each bite. Zita, staring straight ahead, the glassy-eyed model student. Zim, peering down at himself as he prodded at his insides.

Nothing out of the ordinary, aside from the alien. But that still didn't tell Dib what was making the noise. It was like someone had ripped open one of those Weenie Babies, and was vacuuming up the plastic pellets. Too quiet to set off Ms. Bitters, but loud enough to set Dib's teeth on edge.

There was an elastic _SNAP_ as Old Kid's skin returned to youthful smoothness. A breeze formed as every head turned to face him. Old Kid gave the class a winning smile, looking like a pint-sized politician.

Ms. Bitters hated politicians. "You! Go to the nurse for your daily pill."

Old Kid pouted. "But it'll react with the Botox and rot off my—"

"No excuses!" Ms. Bitters whip-cracked her arm, pointing at the door. "Accept your withering fate!"

Head hung low, Old Kid slid out of his desk and trudged up the row. A low titter rose, interspersed with students shushing each other, stealing fearful glances at the teacher.

Dib was too distracted to do any of those things. When Zim attempted an insidious cackle at Old Kid's expense, he choked like he'd just inhaled a bug, and doubled over his desk.

The classroom door opened and closed as Old Kid left. Ms. Bitters glared to silence her students, but the underground classroom was full.

Zim sat up straight as if nothing had happened, and all that remained was the clock's ticking.

* * *

Fourth period ended with a return of sound so sudden that Dib wondered if he'd imagined the odd noise all along. He glanced at Zim, who was acting normal enough to line up tiny, hard-folded balls of paper on his desk. Dib had seen that squinty expression and curled claw poised enough times to hide behind his history textbook milliseconds before the first few shots. The cover had gotten pretty pockmarked over the past months.

At lunch, Dib watched Zim like a hawk. The Irken poked at the especially-inedible food, got bored, and wandered off to test the electro-magnetic capabilities of Gretchen's braces. Dib leaned forward on the table, chin in hands, not even once thinking of intervening.

"Why don't you just go over and kiss him already?" Gaz muttered beside him, her Game Slave 3D online and seeking victims.

Dib shot upright. "What?! Wow! No! _Ew!_" Dib narrowed an eye at his sister. "Why would I ever wanna do _that?!_"

Gaz shrugged and made a vague "I dunno" sound. Her GS 3D beeped as it locked onto username xX-IGGINS-Xx, and she sunk all her attention into the deathmatch.

Dib watched as Zim's latest experiment started attracting flatware and lunch trays. Zim went from observant to bored to walking out of the cafeteria, exiting to the hall instead of outside for lunch-recess. The rain had stopped, but humidity flowed in whenever a student shoved their way outside the double doors.

Foregoing a pretense of "normal human playtime" meant Zim was up to something. His half-eaten lunch forgotten, Dib hurried after him.

"Gotta go," he said, rushing by Gaz. "You can have my pudding cup."

Gaz grunted, busy making another kid's Game Slave explode from across the city. Chocolate was okay.

* * *

Nothing in the hall except the stink of humans previously occupying it. Good. He'd hate to resort to hiding in the restroom over something so trivial.

Zim touched a hand to his chest again, feeling the strange vibration of his breathing. It was like something had gotten stuck inside, and he couldn't get his mind off it.

He tapped his chin. "Should I start _drinking_ the paste as well?"

That's the scene Dib found as he left the cafeteria: Zim looking pensive and muttering by a row of lockers. Dib ran his tongue over his teeth, grinned, and sprang across the hall to deliver the most amazing zinger he'd just thought up.

"Why doncha do humanity a big favor and drink _bleach_ instead?!" Dib clinched it with a double finger-gun pose. "YEAH! Ice burn on the alien!"

Zim responded with an unamused, "That's nice Dib," before turning to walk away.

But Dib wasn't done. "C'mon Zim, what's your plan?" he said, keeping pace behind him. "Gonna blow somethin' up after lunch? Turn the school's security system into sentient renegade robots? Depose Willy?"

Zim's boots squeaked on the floor as he spun to jab a fingertip at Dib. "As if that's any of YOUR business!"

"Ow." Dib stepped back, rubbing the new shallow puncture in his chin. "Okay, so you don't have an evil plan today, jeez."

"I do SO have a plan!" Zim countered, flailing his arms as if it would help prove his point. "It's brilliant and amazing and it's tonight!" He scowled. "You heard NOTHING!"

Dib grinned down at Zim; he'd gained a couple inches on him over the past year. He stage-whispered, "I heard _everything._"

The bell rang. Zim speedwalked to class, looking behind him and pointing at Dib. "And don't come over tonight!"

Dib followed. "How's seven sound?"

"Stay in your hovel!"

"Hey, isn't GIR ordering tacos tonight? That'd be good."

"No tacos for you!"

* * *

Sunlight leaked out from behind dark grey clouds and reflected off dirty puddles. Dib sidestepped one that had claimed a section of the sidewalk—Zim wasn't around to splash, and Gaz was walking behind him, anyway.

Last period had been weird. During the end-of-the-day announcements over the PA system, Zim had slipped out of class. Dib turned the memory over in his head, trying to find an imagined side to the alien's drawn expression, the claws clutching the front of his shirt.

Dib kicked a rock into a pothole puddle, scaring away two bathing sparrows. _What happened? He was fine whenever we talked before._

Zim had gotten a good head start, so any half-cocked plans for a chase were off. Dib shrugged. He could bug the alien about it later.

* * *

Zim didn't spend time out in the rain if he could help it. Paste or not, getting wet wasn't pleasant. He hadn't planned on the machinations of the school's compulsory torture hour, however.

He snuck away during final announcements when the urge to hack out his not-lungs became too great. Alone in the hall, he tried to clear the obstruction until his vision swam. That didn't help, so he left the building before the bell rang to escape the swarm of children.

He got home and weaved through the Robo-Parents, who clanged into each other at the ends of their tracks. He failed to dodge GIR's welcome-home pounce.

"Youse alive! _Youse aliiive!_" Doggy-suited GIR sat on Zim's chest, windmilling his stubby arms and squealing.

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?" Zim sat up, making GIR roll off him. "If I didn't know any better _and Zim always does,_" he muttered, raising a clenched fist, "my own minions are trying to—"

"We gon' git TACOS tonight!" GIR sprang onto the couch in a costume-divesting arc.

"Yes, yes, whatever." Zim walked past, tossing his wig and contacts over his shoulder before lowering himself into the kitchen trash can.

The coolly-lit depths of the base hummed to life it detected the Irken's presence. Zim flopped onto a crescent-shaped chair floating before the console. "Computer, run a diagnostic on me." He shifted to lean forward on his hands as a vertical blue line swept over his vision. "If it's what I think it is..."

"Scan complete." Holo-screens with medical details popped up at Zim's eye level. "Internal condensation with high levels of Earth pollutants present."

Zim clenched the chair cushioning in front of him and growled. "_Curse_ this planet's filthy atmosphere. Computer, fix it!"

"Uhhh, I can't clean up _all_ the air..."

"Not this stupid dirt-ball, ME! Fix ME!"

"Fiiine." Soft blips echoed as the computer began processing for solutions.

* * *

6:58 PM. GIR got off the phone with Krazy Taco, a delivery drone already on the way. It flew over the city with the tiny robot's enormous order, dripping hot grease on Dib's head. He yelped and scrubbed at his burning scalp with a trench coat sleeve.

"Man, those things are dangerous," he said, refocusing on the task at hand. The cul-de-sac with Zim's house was just ahead, and Dib had smelled a Double Beany-Squeezy Burrito in that overloaded bag.

Zim's front door opened. Dog-suited GIR took his order from the drone, and handed over a Suck Munky filled to the brim with dirty pennies. The drone carried off the money, and GIR dragged his food inside, leaving a steaming trail of grease.

Dib ducked and darted across the street to Zim's house, hopped through the lawn gnomes' blind spots, and stepped through the open front door.

GIR waved from the couch, having already transformed it into a beany, meaty, cheesy hell. "Ah gots your Beany-Squeezy!" He cradled a leaky wrapped burrito like a precious baby. "She look just like you!"

"In a minute," Dib said, kicking the door closed behind him. "I'm gonna go see Zim first—ooh, chili fries." He detoured to the couch and grabbed a few for the trip down into the base.

Dib arrived in the part of the base Zim used to plot and maybe carry out his diabolical schemes—which was any room, as far as Dib was concerned. His sworn nemesis was draped over the side of a floating horizontal alien croissant-chair, staring half-lidded into space, while a giant robot arm extending from the ceiling gave him vigorous back-pats.

Dib stared until his brain registered the scene. Then he busted up laughing, and Zim's antennae shot upright.

"Having some self-esteem issues, Zim?" Dib strained out, holding his stomach. "GIR's always... he always wants to give you hugs, you know!"

Dib fell to his knees in hysterics. Zim narrowed his eyes, bouncing slightly under the robot arm. "I thought I told you to—" He coughed up a bunch of laser-lemon phlegm onto the floor below.

"Dude!" Dib fell on his butt and scrambled backward in his haste to recoil. "That's disgusting!"

Zim glared with little energy. "Better than anything _you_ produce, stink-face."

Dib cringed, more revulsion than sympathy. "So uh, what's with you? I know you didn't eat the cafeteria food today."

"Blame your disgusting Earth climate," Zim rasped, flopping a hand at Dib. "The one _your_ species destroyed before I got here. How you humans live long enough to spawn so many revolting babies in this miasma is a complete mystery."

Dib considered explaining how people filled themselves with poisons from day one, and didn't. "You _could_ skip gym class, yanno."

Zim's antennae perked. "And arouse suspicion from the teaching drones?"

Dib shrugged. "Girls do it all the time. Just say it's uh, 'feminine issues.' They'll let you go."

"Okay..." Zim squinted an eye at Dib. "Wait, then why won't you—"

"No reason!" Dib looked everywhere but at Zim. "I just, uh. Don't want to. I'm savin' it." He giggled—too high, too unnatural. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "I'ma go eat that burrito."

Zim sighed and went back to staring at the wall. "Turn the couch cushions over when you're done."

Dib returned to the house level to find GIR on the couch, bulging in his green dog costume as he gargled refried beans. All the food not in him was smeared across the couch, most of the floor, and a few splatters had made it onto the creepy monkey painting. Dib heard an ominous rumble and fled for the door.

He made it out the door, slammed it, and felt it push against his back from the concussive force of GIR's puke-splosion. Someone's car alarm went off, and the neighborhood dogs started making a racket. Dib peeked inside Zim's front window, grimaced, and decided to hurry home before Zim came back upstairs.

* * *

Zim showed up at school the next day. He walked into class rubbing his shoulders, but seemed fine otherwise. He sat at his desk and glowered at Dib.

"What?" Dib said.

"You were supposed to eat that burrito before GIR did," Zim said, flat and matter-of-fact. "I was up all night scraping bean-innards off my ceiling." He leaned forward, arms folded on the desk. "How does a robot even _produce_ bile?"

Dib fiddled with his pencil and looked away for a moment. _So that's why he keeps letting me come over for taco night._

Before the alien could contemplate revenge, Dib said, "They're probably gonna make us walk in gym class again today." Zim didn't change the intensity of his death glare. "You could use that excuse. The one I told you about, remember?" It wasn't going to rain, but Dib figured Zim wasn't up for another boring march anyway.

Zim leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Ah, yes. Zim did not forget." He faced forward as first period began.

Dib bit his lip and grinned. Gym was gonna be good.

* * *

Later between classes, Dib's trench coat got caught in his pants zipper in the restroom. The bell rang for third period, and he ran out, cursing his luck.

"He's saying it right now, isn't he," Dib muttered as he sprinted for the gym. "And I'm missing it."

Peals of childish laughter echoed down the hall. Dib burst into the gym panting, and Zim whipped around to stare at him like a livid cobra. The event Dib had been anticipating since the night before was already over.

Zim walked directly behind Dib during the industrial death march, kicking at his heels the whole way. The second they stepped back inside and the hovering laser-cameras left, Zim leapt at Dib like a hairless green cat. He made a valiant effort to claw out Dib's eyes, until he realized the boy was going for the locker room showers. Zim detached himself and ran off.

The Irken continued fuming in silence in fourth period. He scrawled in a notebook, teeth gritted and fingers clutching his pencil hard enough to leave marks. On the way to lunch, Dib caught a glimpse of his bloody death scratched through several layers of paper.

At lunch, Zim strode purposefully up to where Dib and Gaz were sitting. He slammed one hand on the table, and produced something from a uniform pocket with the other.

Dib went cross-eyed staring at the thin white object held in front of his face.

"What is this?" Zim said in a clipped tone, shaking the object a little. The dangling string danced on the stained table's surface.

Dib blinked and leaned away from Zim's hand. "Where did you _get_ that?"

"It bounced off my head when I gave the physical slave-driver YOUR filthy pig excuse!" He threw it, and it pinged off Dib's glasses. The boy put his hands in front of his face uselessly.

Annoyed by the noise, Gaz glanced up from her Game Slave to make threats. Then she saw the oblong white thing rolling on the table, and her eyes widened.

"Woah." Gaz got up to play her game somewhere else.

The other two didn't notice her leave, and Dib snorted. "Someone threw a tampon at you?" He shook his head, smiling. "Man! I wish I could've seen that."

Zim cocked an eyebrow. "You know what this is? Tell Zim."

Dib buried his face in his arms, laughing into the table.

Zim stood on the lunch table bench to tower over Dib. "_Now!_ Inform your future slave master!"

Shoulders shaking, Dib lifted his face. Zim had one pointy boot on the table as he held the tampon by thumb and forefinger, glowering down in dead despotic seriousness.

Dib thumped his head back into his folded arms and continued laughing.

* * *

He couldn't get an answer out of Dib—the human just ended up beet red, tears streaming from all that infuriating laughter. Zim hoped the wretched stink-weasel ruptured something.

He was too annoyed to demand answers out of the other little smellies, so Zim stalked off to the restroom. A quick scan using a tool from his Pak hadn't shown any advanced technological or military capabilities from the little white object, so he flushed the tampon to be rid of it.

Seconds later, Zim scurried out of the restroom as a wave of toilet-water rushed behind his ankles.

The hall was filling up as students prepared for fifth period. Zim approached Dib at his locker.

"Your secret is no longer safe, Dib!" Zim declared.

Dib stared at the very smug alien, then at the puddle spreading down the hall.

"Don't play dumb!" Zim raised his voice above the hallway chatter to regain Dib's attention. "I know what your tampons are for!"

The student-populated hall fell dead silent. Dib raised shaking hands, the color gone from his face.

"I'm gonna rip your little arms off."

* * *

_What a beautiful friendship. Transcending age, species, and... I can't breathe_


End file.
